A good TLDR for stardew for normies (its evening news hehe)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YqdutJLIi8
I think the big factor for these games is that someone builds something small enough that they can manage it, and big enough that people get hooked into its loop, at that point the cyber market is so big that you have suddenly made 6 million dollars overnight.
The next great barrier for indi's is, does that mentally break you (night in the woods), do you just buy an island and quit (day z), or does that make you a titan (minecraft).. idk haha just making up stuff here, idk the backstory to dayz but it seemed to me they quit lol